


I Remember

by actionfan



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Death, Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Hospitalization, LGBTQ Character, Lesbian Relationship, Loss, Minor Character Death, Regrets, Tragedy, forced seperation, homophobia and homophobic policies, references to the accident and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 18:18:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actionfan/pseuds/actionfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>tragedy, regrets, and what ifs. So so many things are out of our control. Others aren't. (Implied lesbian relationship)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Remember

_ I Remember _

Clinging hands and your admission, “I don’t want to die… alone.”  I promised you wouldn’t.

For we’d sworn vows (not allowed us, not binding, not recognized, but we still said them) together.

But (it turns out) I lied and maybe it makes sense, the whole thing a lie, just like our ‘marriage’.

 

To think California’s the golden state.  Black ice, how could you, or he, have seen it?

Our timing always was bad: you moving here too late before, my getting there too late  

(just ten minutes but then you always preferred to walk even in the cold and wet).

 

Tarnished spots flashed blue, white, and red, muted against the slick asphalt;

marks, etched— almost scorched— across the road, against the sparkling,  unmarred ice;

prayers to some, any, god, anything, anyone that would listen as I followed,  

five hundred feet behind  (how I remembered I will never know),  just watching  yellow lines.

Because otherwise there was much too much to do, the urge to grip the wheel

till knuckles whiten,  palms bloodied by newly manicured nails, too strong.

 

Following you— a game like tag I tried to reason, nothing hanging on the line,

empty eyes a sick joke to be left behind, you always were one for laughs, right?

 

White walls and bleach, florescent lights and alcohol

launched their nauseating assault on the senses.

And without that one little scrap of paper

“I’m sorry you can’t come in, only family.”

 

Moving, decorating, renovating, (once and only once) for Canada was too cold to uproot there.

_After all what difference did a single piece of paper make?_

That old, naïve thought leaves me unsure whether to laugh or cry.

Split payments, laughs around a table, shared meals and money, weren’t enough.

 

I called your parents.  You said your mother was the more accepting of the two?

That your father only yelled till his face was blue. Unsure if I should hope they were at home or not,

I picked up the phone, telling them at least to see you. They refused while I had anything to do with you.

 

I’m sorry for that. That I refused. That you ever had to choose. That I wasn’t there and neither were they.

But I think the worst of it’s the white robed angels of death, and how they said you ‘passed quick’,

during a surgery I couldn’t see, as though that’s some kind of reassurance.

 

My breath still catches at careless words bandied about casually. ‘ _Words are treasures’_ you said.

At random papers scattered everywhere (you always were such a hoarder) I forget to swallow.

When I went through your stuff at the end of, well, everything, I saw those around you

picked up your old habits.  Even me. That’s why I’m here, writing.

You were always so composed, our planner, yet never one to be alone.

You always made yourself right at home anywhere, feet spread across the seat, 

shoes strewn across the floor, my pig, helping yourself to any fridge.

 

And maybe we should have moved after all. You thought of that most of all.

And now I do too. Because, what if we’d lived somewhere we could actually have _married_?

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because of a real story, a lesbian couple where one couldn't visit her lover in the hospital because their relationship wasn't acknowledged.  
> I will ignore any flames about the relationship itself. It's clearly labelled.  
> Concrit on the piece itself is fine. I hate poetry and this was for class and maybe i will use it for a prose piece eventually.


End file.
